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<P align=center><P align=center>TCL’s head offices and production facility in Claxton Bay, Trinidad. Guardian file photo <P align=center>The truth is wealthy <P align=center>Jamaicans prefer not to <P align=center>invest in their country’s <P align=center>productive sectors and allow all the major assets to be snatched up by foreigners. <P align=center>Jamaica’s Finance Minister Omar Davies, January 26 edition of the Jamaica Observer <P align=left>At a time when T&T businessmen are being described in the region as “selfish,” “bombastic” and even cannibalistic, it may be necessary to put some perspective on what local companies have been able to achieve in the Caribbean in the last 15 years or so. <P align=left>A big part of the disquiet in Jamaica over the LNG issue is really small-island jealousy over the success of the T&T corporate sector in selling goods and making investments throughout the region. <P align=left>A good example of this attitude is a column written by veteran Jamaican journalist Dawn Ritch in the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday last. <P align=left>Ms Ritch starts off the column by claiming that her country’s financial sector was “handed to Trinidad and Barbados on a platter.” <P align=left>She continues by claiming that no one wants to live in Trinidad “because there are poisonous snakes and no mountains.” <P align=left>All Trinidadians now want to go to Jamaica and “they’ve always wanted to come here,” according to Ms Ritch, who asserted that “first, the black ones came because the Indians were running them out. Now that the blacks are in control down there, the Indians have come to Jamaica to run our show up here. They’re making a very bad job of it.” <P align=left>Ms Ritch seems to be particularly perturbed by the production problem experienced by Carib Cement (which is majority-owned by TCL) at the beginning of last year, commenting that the “venerable institution” under TCL’s ownership manufactured and sold rotten cement. <P align=left>“An absolute disgrace, this brought the Jamaican construction sector to its knees, and sharply reduced our overall growth and income while costing us individually millions of dollars, not to mention the lost time for which they refuse to compensate.” <P align=left>For Ms Ritch, this problem faced by TCL in Jamaica “raises the question of how, after such reckless and disastrous management of a major strategic monopoly and resource, the Trinidadians could have continued to own the Jamaican cement company.” <P align=left>Discussin
<P align=center><P align=center><P align=center>TCL’s head offices and production facility in Claxton Bay, Trinidad. Guardian file photo <P align=center>The truth is wealthy <P align=center>Jamaicans prefer not to <P align=center>invest in their country’s <P align=center>productive sectors and allow all the major assets to be snatched up by foreigners. <P align=center>Jamaica’s Finance Minister Omar Davies, January 26 edition of the Jamaica Observer <P align=left>At a time when T&T businessmen are being described in the region as “selfish,” “bombastic” and even cannibalistic, it may be necessary to put some perspective on what local companies have been able to achieve in the Caribbean in the last 15 years or so. <P align=left>A big part of the disquiet in Jamaica over the LNG issue is really small-island jealousy over the success of the T&T corporate sector in selling goods and making investments throughout the region. <P align=left>A good example of this attitude is a column written by veteran Jamaican journalist Dawn Ritch in the Jamaica Gleaner on Sunday last. <P align=left>Ms Ritch starts off the column by claiming that her country’s financial sector was “handed to Trinidad and Barbados on a platter.” <P align=left>She continues by claiming that no one wants to live in Trinidad “because there are poisonous snakes and no mountains.” <P align=left>All Trinidadians now want to go to Jamaica and “they’ve always wanted to come here,” according to Ms Ritch, who asserted that “first, the black ones came because the Indians were running them out. Now that the blacks are in control down there, the Indians have come to Jamaica to run our show up here. They’re making a very bad job of it.” <P align=left>Ms Ritch seems to be particularly perturbed by the production problem experienced by Carib Cement (which is majority-owned by TCL) at the beginning of last year, commenting that the “venerable institution” under TCL’s ownership manufactured and sold rotten cement. <P align=left>“An absolute disgrace, this brought the Jamaican construction sector to its knees, and sharply reduced our overall growth and income while costing us individually millions of dollars, not to mention the lost time for which they refuse to compensate.” <P align=left>For Ms Ritch, this problem faced by TCL in Jamaica “raises the question of how, after such reckless and disastrous management of a major strategic monopoly and resource, the Trinidadians could have continued to own the Jamaican cement company.” <P align=left>Discussin
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